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And again, this practice of mindfulness could be good in theory. But when it’s warped by who is in charge, it’s full-on positive psychology meets Tea Party. Ayn Rand’s books are in our “core library,” and you can’t escape that pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mindset. When a customer comes in and is rude to you, it’s your choice to be offended. It’s you not taking personal responsibility for the situation. If you point out something wrong or unethical, it’s labeled as your choice to complain. One of my managers told me she had a conversation with the former founder, Chip Wilson, where he talked about how he didn’t believe in public assistance or welfare, that people who were “entrepreneurial” would survive and be successful.

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Since then, I’ve watched hundreds of people cycle through my store and the stores around me. The turnover at Lululemon is one of the highest for any retail company; even outside the store, upper-level management is constantly changing. It’s a company that really purports to be about their people, so you’d think they’d examine this more, especially since their 10-year goal is “getting our global collective scores within the top quartile of happiest people on the planet.” But who measures that, and with what measuring stick?

Everything in the Lululemon corporate culture is based on a bastardized version of yoga: the employee regulations book is called “Pramana,” which is a word that roughly translates to knowledge in Sanskrit. Ironically, Pramana really means true knowledge you gain from experience, not just what people tell you. The theft guide is called “Asteya,” which means “non-stealing”—an ethical guideline from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. That’s typical Lululemon for you; they co-opt something from yoga and warp it until it loses its true meaning. We once made a shopper that spelled out the Sanskrit word Brahmacharya (virtue) in drugs, junk food and hypodermic needles. The company is so disproportionately tone-deaf it’s astounding. They mean to be relevant, and instead they manipulate good ideas until they become totally corrupt.

The emphasis on goodness and “yoga values” can be very insidious, very cult-like. You get constant feedback and “coaching,” which means that you’re scrutinized from the moment you walk in the door till the moment you leave. If you’re in a bad mood when you walk in, you have to do a “clearing,” which is this neo-spiritual way of making you say whatever is going on in your life, and then someone coaches you on how to get over it.

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When I started at the store, I was straight out of college, very lost. I had massive student loans and I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. The girl who interviewed me was in her late 20s, edgy, very cool. She seemed so genuine. She talked about how what she did never felt like a job, how Lululemon cared about empowering women to reach their goals, about living your “best life,” about how Lululemon cares about their people. Most of all she talked about the company’s integrity. I went for it hook, line and sinker. I was 21, and I wanted to believe that what she said could be true; I was very naive.

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And leaving is awful—you have to do your exit interview in front of your manager, so you can’t say a lot of things or their “happiness metric” will suffer. In general, it’s hard to leave Lululemon on good terms.

And all this being said, I really don’t hate this company. Most of the people who work for the company are good people at heart. I believe they could change if they actually wanted to. It’s that belief that makes the reality so jarring, so sad.

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.YogaNerd MD.

It's kind of funny how hard it is to be interviewed and get a position
there. I had THREE interviews I had to go through, which was so nuts. ETA
Also, they are a snark-free zone. Having a sense of irony is, um, less than appreciated.

Charityba to Yoga Nerd MD
7/15/15 3:22pm


That’s probably by design. They want people to feel committed even before they’re hired. It also creates this aura of exclusivity — it’s the employment equivalent of those bars and clubs that have long lines out the door and when you finally get in it’s the same dingy, crowded nightclub environment as anywhere else in town. If it took you a long time to get in, you’re not going to want to quit right away when the weirdness starts

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SaffronaYoga Nerd MD
7/15/15 1:51pm

I was amused when Eckhardt Tolle was on Oprah and he told her he lived on the edge of the rainforest as he was being interviewed down at Spanish Banks. He lives in an area, above the beach, where houses routinely sell for $20,000,000. The only “rainforest” near that snake oil peddler is the forest surrounding U.B.C.

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Collapse replies

.valeriethomas


SuffersfoolsgladlyaAnonymous
7/15/15 12:25pm
..
Any place that has their own way of using language, their own unique vocabulary, especially replacing strongly negative words with softer sounding euphemisms, is generally a place to stay away from.

Just look at Scientology, or for that matter any place that establishes it’s own culture and world. Not to say that all of them are awful, I’m sure there are some organizations that meet this description that are beneficial to people..I just haven’t encountered any and I’ve been around a long time.

Even long standing legit institutions can fall prey to cult dynamics..I have experienced this in certain AA groups and also in the Tibetan Buddhist community (where I studied and practiced for many years) when Lamas go off the rails and exploit their students sexually or economically.

Tip; there is always a gut feeling that something is wrong in these situations..don’t ignore it!

( I especially love that Lulumon was at one point selling a wrist Mala ( prayer beads) with the corporate logo where the traditional Guru bead symbolizing the teacher belongs. The Mala would have cost about thirty-five bucks at a Dharma supply place but the company had it on sale for $108. 108 is a sacred number in Buddhism.)

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Yoga Nerd MDaAnonymous
7/15/15 12:21pm

I dunno, maybe retail has changed a lot, but I remember finding out I got PAID sick days and was blown away. It was the first time I had ever had that benefit at a retail employer. The pay was better than what I had received at other retailers as well. The way we treat retail employees in GENERAL is incredibly shitty, so my experience at lululemon certainly benefitted from incredibly low expectations.


MelissamacheteaYoga Nerd MD
7/15/15 12:55pm

Aside from the Rand bullshit and the nuspeak weirdness, it sounds like your regular retail experience. I've only worked at s couple retail stores, but off the clock hours was an unspoken expectation at all of them. Forget about sick time and vacation time.

plzprettypussaYoga Nerd MD
7/15/15 1:13pm

The simplest answer was that you worked in a municipality that mandated paid sick days, whereas the author of this piece clearly does not.

Yoga Nerd MDaplzprettypuss
7/15/15 1:15pm

New York city does, I guess? Wait, no, that can’t be right, bc I don’t think my friend who works at another retailer doesn’t get paid leave.... Maybe its an older policy that they did away with?


zombiepandaaYoga Nerd MD
7/15/15 1:20pm

NYC absolutely does mandate paid sick days for all workers. If your friend’s employer is saying otherwise, she needs to have a talk with DCA. [www1.nyc.gov]
.

Yoga Nerd MDazombiepanda
7/15/15 1:21pm

Thanks for the tip!
.

1llamarampageaYoga Nerd MD
7/15/15 2:09pm

The Smithsonian gift shop complex had pretty good employee benefits when I worked there, including paid sick leave, health insurance, and even a 401(k) for people who had been there for 2 years, but that’s because it’s technically federal employment. And of course, over the 2.5 years I worked there, they started firing employees on pretext as soon as they got near the 2 year mark, hiring 2 new part-timers every time a full-timer left, and having “long-term temporary” employees when before “temporary” meant strictly “for the summer busy season.” The experience of watching my best-of-the-breed retail job slowly get eroded to same-as-the-rest soul-crushingness is what convinced me that the filthy fingers of capitalism will eventually creep in and dirty every good thing.

HudsonEileeniversityAsSeenOnLawAndOrderaYoga Nerd MD
7/15/15 2:52pm


After working shitty retail and service jobs for so long, when I first had a job that gave me sick and vacation AND personal days, it took me, no kidding TWO YEARS to get over the feeling I was going to be fired when I had to use one of those days.

It’s amazing how shitty and abusive “entrepreneurs” can be.


Yoga Nerd MDaHudsonEileeniversityAsSeenOnLawAndOrder
7/15/15 3:30pm

Ahem, JOB CREATORS!

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Yoga seemed encompassing, embracing all faiths and non-political. That is why yoga is a very effective political tool because it is supposedly a non-threat. Whether Tulsi is naive or a proactive conspirator, it's obvious she is trying to mislead. The aspect of yoga she embraced and espousing is the religious aspect of yoga, wherein you have to surrender unquestionably to a crazy guru; not the yoga the elite westerners practice as sort of a beauty secret.

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in 1997 I found myself in Rishikesh, India, on my own spiritual pilgrimage, and discovered that Andrew’s photograph was plastered all over town, announcing his upcoming two-week retreat. The local bookstores were carrying all his published works. I quickly read them all, and decided to attend.

Unlike our first encounter, on the retreat I did notice something very interesting. I had always been a restless meditator, never able to last longer than 15 minutes before needing to adjust my position. Sitting with Andrew, however, I found to my amazement that I was able to sit effortlessly for 90 minutes in perfect stillness. So there was definitely an “energy” in that room with which I was previously unfamiliar.

But as a seasoned Buddhist practitioner later pointed out to me, “Energy is not inherently a good thing.”





As the two weeks of the retreat unfolded, my “cult antennae” became increasingly aroused. Disagreeing with or challenging Andrew about anything was simply not permitted, and would be met with public humiliation and scorn from him, accompanied by his particularly annoying, cackling laughter. Cohen likened his “Perfect Teachings” to a glittering diamond, shining and flawless no matter through which facet it is viewed.

When the retreat was over, Andrew’s written works went on display and I picked up an early copy of his newsletter and discovered that his followers addressed their letters to him with the salutation “Dear Lord.”

That very same newsletter grew and expanded over the years into the aforementioned What is Enlightenment?, in which Cohen managed to attract and interview respected luminaries not only from the spiritual world, but esteemed social activists, eco-pioneers and other visionaries on the cutting-edge of contemporary, paradigm-shifting work. Although it often seemed as if he was actively cultivating “respect-by-association.”

While Andrew consistently presented a public face as the very model of integrity, often denouncing other teachers for their imperfections and bad behaviors, he was engaging in them himself. He had a community of devotees living with him on a property in Lenox, Massachusetts, adhering to a strict regime of rules and regulations, with him comfortably ensconced as King of the Castle.

It gradually came to light that anyone deviating in the slightest from their leader’s ideas or instructions were subject to bizarre punishments, humiliation, and community shunning, and anyone who wanted to leave often had to literally escape in the dead of night. Scores of people reported suffering emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual trauma at his hands.